There is only one big truth about the HF series. The books are a help, a big help if you want, because these are written with as focus the exam, but in the early pages of the HF JSP, for instance, it's clearly stated that some necessary material for the exam includes the Serlvet spec 2.4, the JSP 2.0 and the JSTL 1.1 specs from Sun. The books are a big help, but these don't cover everything, and the answer to your question is: adapt yourself, don't pretend from the authors the answers to all your needs, and accept human mistakes, as the book has been written by humans likely with very strict deadlines. If you were asked a question that you didn't encountered yet (we all passed through this, believe me) just accept it, and consult the specs to find the answers you need. 99,9999999% of the times, the answers are there.

Good luck with your exam.

Marco Tedone<br />SCJP1.4,SCJP5,SCBCD,SCWCD

Mike Gershman
Ranch Hand

Joined: Mar 13, 2004
Posts: 1272

posted Feb 27, 2005 16:44:00

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Marco:

Thank you very much for for your valuable comments.

HFS page xxvi says "You should have a copy of the specs, although you do not need them to pass the exam". I thought that the material in HFS was self-contained for purposes of mastering basic servlet/JSP programming and for passing the SCWCD exam.

I also thought that the chapter Exam Cram tests were closed book, so I should not be looking up answers in the specs.

If I have this all wrong, I'd like to know it so that I can use the book more effectively.

I think there are a very few places where Bryan and Kathy and I had a disconnect between what was on the exam, what was in the chapters, and what made it to the coffee crams. I'm checking with Bryan and Kathy to see if they might have a list of those disconnects. The book was meant to be self contained, we just didn't do a perfect job of that :roll:

When we make a spec reference or a reference to another book, those are meant to be additional, optional information, and those references are always for materials that were used as references when creating the actual Sun exam.

Originally posted by Bert Bates: Hey Mike - I think there are a very few places where Bryan and Kathy and I had a disconnect between what was on the exam, what was in the chapters, and what made it to the coffee crams. I'm checking with Bryan and Kathy to see if they might have a list of those disconnects. HTH, Bert